I dunno, lets see how the next two years play out. Anyway, It’s not as if George W won on an economic message. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/transformed-politics-of-post-recession-america.html How good is the economy? It’s alright, and the administration will be due some ambiguous credit for stewardship. Truthfully though, there was no effort or intention by the Administration to foster an environment for low gas prices. If anything, they always aspired to about $7/gal gas. And the stimulus didn’t stimulate. To the extent consumers are spending…. There’s cheap gas and the fact everyone’s succeeded in getting their credit balances down, this being a natural reaction to the prior hard times. To the extent companies are hiring…. It’s very good to be skilled, not very good to be not skilled.

I agree with him, at least partially, here. I think the gas tax should be raised, because i do think we should decrease our use of petrochemicals (in addition to the geo-political reasons he cites, i think that it is good for the environment, and also good for climate change), but I’d use the proceeds to address the infrastructure issues we have–roads, bridges, etc.

As for Maher, I like him. He is not always correct, but i like having a prominent atheist around. Personally, I do not think that all religions are violent and crazy, but all of them have the potential to be so, and almost ( I quibble here because I don’t know, for example, if the Jains have ever been so, nor do I think the Quakers or Shakers would qualify here) all of them have been, at some point in their history. maher, of course, ignores these “minor” quibbles. I cut him slack because he is a comic, not an academic.